Battle for Azeroth Demo - Lightforged Draenei and Highmountain Tauren Racials, First Look at New Zones

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth was announced at BlizzCon 2017 today and we got to play a demo of it at the convention! These are some notes that were taken during our experience playing the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Demo.

Allied Races

Alliance - Lightforged Draenei

Lightforged are a special race of Draenei that were blessed by the light. Character customization offers new horn styles, light-touched tattoos that can be changed and the glowing rune on their forehead is also customizable.

Horde - Highmountain Tauren

Highmountain Tauren were first introduced in Legion, in the Highmountain zone. The characteristics that separate them from regular Mulgore Taurens are also customizable. Tribal Painting on their fur and face, carved tribal markings on their horns as well as the horns themselves are customizable, variations of their moose like horns. Note: In druid form the horns on the bear and cat form change to moose horns.

Other

Note on Allied Races: When Battle for Azeroth releases, fresh made Allied Races will start at level 20. These are the other 4 Allied Races:

Dark Iron Dwarves

Void Elves

Nightborne

Zandalari Trolls

Note on Customization: On this demo there did not appear to be any new customization for existing races.

Starting Zones

Alliance - Kul Tiras, Drustvar

Drustvar seems to be a small human village that was once lively until recently. Everyone in the town seems to be frozen in time but still breathing, an effigy sits in the center of the town protected by some strong magic.

Kul Tiras has a few other subzones, Fallhaven, Caver's Harbor, Barrowknoll Cemetery, Fletcher's Hollow, and Gol Koval. The area seems to have a Stormheim's woods or Grizzly Hills type of feel. Rares and Treasures are found all around the zones.

North is Carver's Harbor a small harbor and pig farm, infested with wicker beasts, dog-like creatures that have wooden masks and armor, reminding you of Trolls.

In the center is Barrowknoll Cemetery which is dark and misty. It seems most of the creatures here would be friendly, such as stags, does, and tiny bunnies; all have been bewitched or cursed with blue glowing eyes and have become hostile. Further into the Cemetery there are spirits and more wicker wearing beasts and creatures.

South the land becomes somewhat dry and the creatures that inhabit it are large bats and large bonespiders, then more skeletal creatures.

Even further south is a mountain covered in ice and snow, a large arcane stone sentinel can be seen from the distance.

Lastly to the southeast is Fletcher's Hollow, a small area has some humans fighting off massive amounts of wicker beasts and thralls. There is the Elderstone Mine that is shrouded in a ominous purple light. The overall feel of this entire zone gives off the feeling you are fighting against a witch-like being that is trying to curse all the living creatures of the land.

Horde - Zandalar, Nazmir

Nazmir is a traditional troll area. The first thing you notice is the massive Blood Moon in the sky.

Moss and vine covered Troll ruins is what you see when you first start in this zone.

There are a few named subzones, The Necropolis, Shaldra'mah, Terrace of Sorrows, and Bloodbutcher Outpost.

Friendly mask wearing floating spirits litter the starting area. The first quest you do allows you to transform into a Blood Troll once you appear close to Shaldra'mah.

As you progress farther into the zone, it becomes dark and misty with large elites. Rares and Treasures appear on the map as you are questing.

You traverse a broken bridge to The Necropolis. After drawing some runes and sounding the drum you enter the Necropolis, which is guarded by two Zandalari Empire stone guardians.

Inside you see a large floating troll named Bwonsamdi, swirling in souls around him. He is the quest giver for The Necropolis.

Further east is Shaldra'mah, as you approach you see they are hostile until you get closer and transform into a Blood Troll, a tall pale troll with blood stained feet and legs up to the knee, blood stained hands to your elbows, neck stained blood and vials of blood hanging from the waste. Your hair is also soaked in blood and your eyes are black and sunken.

In this village the females are the leaders, and literally everything is soaked in blood and they worship a god that is a large blood bat. Southeast is the Terrace of Sorrows, large lizard, komodo dragon-like monsters infest these ruins along with some large vultures.

Further in there are starving trolls and raptor like creatures as well as some that have risen from the dead. Lastly there is a large structure that was walled off in the demo. It looked like a sunken temple-esque place, possibly a dungeon later on named Zul'Nazan.

Comment by Darksuperman

Comment by Aeliel

on 2017-11-03T17:28:23-05:00

Druids have Mark of the Wild again.

The most important change of all!

Alright, but seriously though.

If there's going to be another stat squish, I'm not surprised. The numbers have gotten perhaps a tiny bit ridiculous (again), and with the shiny new level scaling for leveling content, they can make sure it doesn't break things, because they're going to be poking at the numbers anyway.

Comment by lankybrit

on 2017-11-03T17:29:23-05:00

Just note that I was at a Blizzcon and played through some WOD stuff. It was totally different to what was released though.

Comment by alqtrkappa

on 2017-11-03T17:29:25-05:00

Final Verdict might be a nice throughput increase on the Argus encounter O.oIf these guys go live more than a month before BFA goes live

Comment by jjanchan

on 2017-11-03T17:31:07-05:00

New racials! I'm most intrigued by Final Verdict... Too bad it's not a Horde race!

Comment by bluesolei

on 2017-11-03T17:31:39-05:00

stat squish is welcomed, numbers were getting to big to process

Comment by Sh1n1gam1

on 2017-11-03T17:32:03-05:00

>Demonbane: Experience gained from killing Beasts increased by 20%.

someone remember that the troll used to had that pasive a expancion ago ?

Comment by orleadan

on 2017-11-03T17:32:15-05:00

Finally a well deserved stat squish.

Comment by Ardrial

on 2017-11-03T17:33:48-05:00

Looking forward to hearing what classes the Zandalari Trolls can be. :)

Comment by Aeliel

on 2017-11-03T17:34:04-05:00

As for the racials... I wonder if standard races' racials will be adjusted or not. They seem very strong - I can definitely see, for example, progression raiders who play a tank Horde-side prioritizing unlocking a Highmountain Tauren so they can race-swap to it. Less damage taken and additional versatility? And an extra charge (although on a longer CD)? Honestly, even the Lightforged Draenei racials feel underwhelming in comparison.

Although the fact that a racial being called "Demonbane" increases experience gains from killing beasts seems... odd. Makes all this look not final.

I have no comments on the zones - I have the virtual ticket and will watch the available videos and comment then (...assuming I can find the time... damnit Blizzard I need to sleep and I have things to do that aren't watch stuff!).

Comment by AsianBoiy

on 2017-11-03T17:35:23-05:00

Passives too strong need to change normal ones to compensate

Comment by talyesen

on 2017-11-03T17:35:41-05:00

That's quite the stat squish. Factor of about 300 or so.=

Comment by Joshmaul

on 2017-11-03T17:38:15-05:00

Just note that I was at a Blizzcon and played through some WOD stuff. It was totally different to what was released though.

Fair point made here. Some things don't even make it out of BlizzCon, let alone out of alpha/beta/etc.

Looking forward to hearing what classes the Zandalari Trolls can be. :)

One of them had better be shaman. I made a point of race-changing mine from orc to troll, and RPing her as a Zandalari, because of the armor set out of Throne of Thunder and because of the hidden appearances for the Doomhammer and the Fist of Ra-den.

Comment by Saberia

on 2017-11-03T17:38:42-05:00

Saw a stream that looked at stat squish. Item level from Antorus raid drops in dungeon journal is around 300, so probably real stats of characters at 120 would be at least double of that demo.

Comment by Seifery

on 2017-11-03T17:39:04-05:00

So.... Blizzard just stated THIS about Void Elves:"Many have sought to harness the corruptive magic of the Void. Most who tried have fallen into madness. Determined to use this power for the good of Azeroth, Alleria Windrunner is the first mortal to succeed at defying the shadow's whispers."...

So playing a Shadow Priest with "VOID-bolt and VOID-torrent" etc, blizzard seem to see us as immortal. Nice to know :D